One More Addiction
by Jane McCartney
Summary: Darkfic. Buffy-Xander interaction. True freedom invariably has its price, and sometimes it'll be a higher one than you expect.


Title: One More Addiction (Blaze Of Glory)  
  
Author: Jane McCartney  
  
Disclaimer: Nope, none of the characters are mine. I'm just stealing them for a sec, so don't sue me please. It's not like I'll make rivers of money, or a penny at least.  
  
Classification: Darkfic, a vignette between Xander and Buffy.  
  
Rating: R  
  
Feedback: Always deeply appreciated!  
  
E-mail: janemccartney@bol.com.br  
  
Distribution: Tell me first and then I'll most likely say OK.  
  
Acknowledgments: Thanks to Theo, 'cause he's been helping me so much with all my fics! Everything I write will always be dedicated to him in the first place. And, of course, to every reviewer! A big smack for you all!  
  
Author's note: This is dark, and a little confusing I guess. It just popped into my mind, all of a sudden, and I decided to try and write this one. I don't know if it's a bit too dark... oh well, at least I gave it a shot.  
  
IMPORTANT note: After Hell's Bells, I'm not necessarily keeping to canon. Actually, as I haven't seen any episodes post-Gone yet in Brazil, I don't want to use any information that I'm not familiar with. Just know that Spike did try to rape Buffy, and Willow isn't addicted to magic anymore. Let's also say that Tara didn't die here.  
  
Summary: Darkfic. Buffy-Xander interaction. True freedom invariably has its price, and sometimes it'll be a higher one than you expect.  
  
***  
  
A cloudy and darkened sky, scowling over a dozen graveyards; the middle of just one more ordinarily savage night, on the Hellmouth.  
  
Two shadows in the clash of nightfall stood together, face to face, a pair of hazel eyes locking with the other's dark brown ones.  
  
The blonde girl was the first to avert her gaze.  
  
"I knew I'd find you here," the dark-haired man stated, starting to pace around her with his eyes looking down at the ground.  
  
"I knew you'd look for me here first," Buffy Summers retorted pointedly, helplessly feeling a cold chill freezing her entire body, wrapping herself into a tight hug absent-mindedly.  
  
Xander Harris just scowled, a certain poison in his glance. "I just wanna know why, y'know? I think ya really owe me that much at least," he said with those hauntingly calm, cold eyes. Eyes that Buffy never thought she'd see on her Xander-shaped friend – at least, before this.  
  
Another chill, another shudder. This time though, the Slayer knew it wasn't due to the cold wind blowing against her petite body.  
  
"I don't know," the girl replied honestly, gazing at Xander for the first time since their first eye contest brief minutes before.  
  
With a grimace of irony and incredulity, Xander uttered, almost yelled, "That's the best you can give me?! You don't frickin' know? C'mon Buff, we ain't stupid kids in high school any longer. I think we can both handle the truth here..."  
  
Buffy absent-mindedly took a step back. She kept silent as well.  
  
"What is it? Really, what is it that does it for you? Having sex with a vampire... do ya like the cold skin? Or is it the goddamn dark clothes? Huh? C'mon, share with me. Maybe it's the experience, they do have a helluva lot of baggage after all," Xander started to advance to her side.  
  
And as the Slayer frowned, he kept going with a grin of spiky incredulity. "Or is it a lot more simple than that? They just screw you better, than guys who are actually alive?" he muttered in a low voice.  
  
Buffy could feel the blood starting to boil inside her veins, violently pushing away her friend's body and punching him with a blow straight to the face.  
  
Xander staggered back, and ran his hand along his lips where the blood was spilling out. He looked at his bloodied hand, and then smirked coldly at a wide-eyed Buffy.  
  
The blonde felt a pang of pain rushing through her heart, the exact moment her fist landed the blow, and her features quickly became appalled. Her hands covering her mouth in horror, Buffy's eyes started to form unshed tears.  
  
"I, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry! Oh God, I'm so sorry Xander..." she started to jabber incoherently, the tears finally falling down her face.  
  
Xander looked down, and then put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed softly. He waited until she was looking back at him. "It's a bit too late for that now," he sighed.  
  
Buffy tried to talk, but the gasps got caught in her throat from the effort. The petite Slayer then raised her face to meet Xander's, and the two of them exchanged a silent glance for long seconds.  
  
"I was so lost," Buffy began softly, feeling a great hole in her heart; she had red eyes from recent hot tears, eyes that seemed to be devoid of any life in the dark night.  
  
"I didn't know who I was anymore – hell, not even *what* I was anymore! I couldn't count on my friends; I was totally freaking alone! I, I couldn't screw them up as much as I was already screwed up. I thought I had no one to turn to, no one that could understand. I thought I was just like him..."  
  
"Spike," Xander shook his head slowly.  
  
"It was a mistake, I didn't-" Buffy tried to hurriedly say, her expression finally showing feeling; and it was a growing rage, at that.  
  
"So your only answer for whatever existential problems you had, was to shag like crazy with Fangless huh?" the young man continued seemingly calm, not having any problems cutting her off or giving her words a further second of attention.  
  
"As I said, we ain't been stupid kids for a long time now. What goes around comes around, if you ask me, and neither of us are innocents anymore. People make mistakes, they pay for them. They always do."  
  
The blonde Slayer suddenly looked at Xander, lifting up her eyes to his in an abrupt move, and her expression softened to sadness and grief. "I know. I believe that too," she murmured simply, dismally smiling a thin smile.  
  
"Y'know, for a long time I believed things were like, black and white. You had real heroes and real villains. I really believed in good guys versus bad guys, and I thought what we were doing was the right thing to do – fighting the good fight, and all that," Xander began, locking an intense gaze with the Slayer – to subsequently dismiss it with a frown.  
  
"I was an idiot," he added simply. "I didn't know a damn thing. Only what I needed to convince myself, that I was on the path of the righteous," the dark-haired boy snorted.  
  
He continued, "If there really is one, anyway. Sometimes I think there's no goddamn point; it's like, can't people just get it and move on? 'Cause it's not evil that wins in the end, y'know."  
  
"What..."  
  
"Ya can save any moron on the streets, but so what? 'Cause they'll be men who might hit their wives and kids, or steal from their employers, or cheat the IRS – hell, they could even be drug-dealers, or some freakin' Mayor- wannabe that'll try to destroy the world. So I ask you, what's the whole goddamn point of it all?"  
  
"Some things are worth the fight, the pain," Buffy said determinedly, in a cracking but decided voice.  
  
"But most aren't, right?" Xander grinned bitterly, slightly bent against the girl's back, soft and low murmurs whispered in her ears.  
  
"I made a mistake, and it, it cost me a world of pain," the blonde Slayer replied weakly, feeling her body almost totally surrendering into the dark- haired man's strong arms.  
  
Xander laughed, and then sent her a stern glance. "Oh no, you didn't just make a mistake, sweetheart. You *are* one."  
  
He snorted friskily. "You think I can't tell? That I can't smell your fear?"  
  
"You, Buffy," Xander muttered, as his lips started to slowly travel Buffy's shoulder, "came back..." a soft kiss on her neck, "as one completely..." his tongue gingerly strolled against her tense skin, "fucked-up Slayer, didn't ya?"  
  
Buffy moaned, a mix of pain and pleasure at the same time. "N-no," she pleaded in a barely audible whisper.  
  
"What's the problem, Buffster? Ya like it when Deadboy or Fangless does it..." Xander continued to mutter, closing the distance between their bodies with a savage and abrupt embrace.  
  
The Slayer moaned louder, a roar that couldn't possibly be established as one of deep agony or true pleasure either way.  
  
"No!" Buffy suddenly broke away with a violent push.  
  
Xander's smirk grew wilder. "I always liked tough chicks."  
  
The blonde looked up at him, and stood quiet for fleeting seconds. "I-I-I should have been there for her," Buffy rambled regretfully.  
  
And as thick and devastating raindrops started to fall and create mud out of the dirt, Xander's face was suddenly and unexpectedly devoid of any previous wit or sarcasm, leaving in place an enraged expression of distress and affliction instead.  
  
"Oh my God, I was screwing Spike's brains out when I should have... I... oh, God..." the Slayer kept on babbling, tears freely falling down her soft cheeks.  
  
"Shut the hell up, you bitch," Xander hissed, pacing back and forth maniacally.  
  
Buffy tearfully broke down, and fell to the dirty ground with an agonizing cry. "Oh God, oh God...."  
  
Xander stopped pacing, his look lost and conflicted. He raggedly pulled the gasping Slayer up from the ground, and shoved her against one of the crypts.  
  
"I said shut the hell up, you goddamn necrophiliac! You twisted slut! She died because of you, you think I don't get that? You should have been there to protect Ahn, and you were screwing him instead!" Xander exploded savagely, hitting a dumb and unreacting Buffy with hearty punches.  
  
As the blood started to cover her pained face, Xander kept talking, "Even after the bastard tried to rape you, you still went back to him like some screwed-up whipped puppy! After everything we'd been through, you lied to us... again! And Ahn... Ahn was just looking for me to tell me I was in danger, even after what I did to her..."  
  
Xander had to stop for a moment, his emotions boiling. Hatred for her, and himself easily visible to anybody that might have looked at the young man.  
  
"She was alone, but Willow told me you said to her you were gonna patrol that night. But you didn't! Ahn was alone and helpless, right here in this goddamn cemetery! In this very same spot, almost!"  
  
Xander abruptly stopped, letting Buffy's body fall flat onto the dirt again. The mud rapidly covered her skin, as low-pitched sobs were heard coming from her mouth.  
  
The impetuous and unforeseen rain kept falling, seeming to paint a picture of the emotions of the mismatched couple. With its pitiless and primal roar, the water highlighted Buffy and Xander standing and laying silent, conflict and hurt in both hazel and brown eyes.  
  
Buffy remembered that night, exactly three weeks earlier. The same heavy downpour, the maddening rain, the sick mirror to the rivers of her own guilt and shame... and then rivers of pain and tears, and even more guilt and shame...  
  
Because the Slayer would find out that, after she had thrown herself into Spike's arms yet again to escape the void she'd been trying to fight off for so long... Anya had died in this very same cemetery, where she was supposedly patrolling.  
  
The thing was, Xander had left to find Buffy and warn her of the existence of a new Big Bad-of-the-week, even though they didn't know how to kill it yet. Then Willow had found out additional news about the creature.  
  
Before the former witch's discoveries however, Xander had called and told the redhead he'd search for the Slayer in Restfield cemetery, after having had no success in any other place he'd looked for her.  
  
Unfortunately Anya had practically freaked out upon learning her former fiancé was in possible danger, and left for his sake without giving anyone a chance to stop her.  
  
And at the same moment Xander had discovered Buffy and Spike together, Anya had had a fatal meeting with a vampire. The young man had been the first one to locate her body, just about equally covered by mud as Buffy's was right now, dirty and bloodied as well.  
  
A quiet stillness overtook the darkness of the night, for many fleeting moments.  
  
"I'm so sorry," Buffy whispered, eyes downcast and a bitingly thin smile of contemplation on her cheerless face.  
  
Xander chuckled loudly. "Yeah, Buffster, y'know – I believe you. But I really think that it's a little bit too late now, sweetheart. And that's why it'll be so damn funny to cut ya in half, before suckin' on that cute little neck of yours..."  
  
A serene look of pain in her face, Buffy stood up slowly. Xander's silhouette seemed slumped and fragile, and the Slayer felt a deep pang of pain aching in her heart as she saw a slight trace left of her old friend in the undead creature before her.  
  
"I'm not sorry for Anya. I don't have – no, I can't be sorry for Anya for you," she said with a look of disgust. "Not for you, never for you. I won't screw over her memory like that – ever."  
  
An ephemeral glimpse of confusion ran across the dark-haired man's features, but quickly a cocky grin took its place. "So may I know what the hell you do feel sorry for then, Miss Summers?"  
  
"For myself," the blond girl answered simply.  
  
This time, no amount of cockiness could disguise the confusion in Xander. "What are you talking about?"  
  
Buffy chuckled this time. Not a heartfelt laugh though, it was the complete opposite as a matter of fact.  
  
"Who am I kidding? I deserve this. Every last second of this. But if I had to be sorry for anything right now, it would be for having to disgrace the memory of the best friend I ever had, by staking your heart – while you wear his face."  
  
A brief moment of utter stillness.  
  
"I thought you liked vampires, Buff," Xander chimed in with a musing smirk.  
  
The Slayer half-snorted. "And I thought you hated them," she retorted ruefully.  
  
"Gotta love the irony, I always say," he said casually, his seemingly sour voice dripping with sarcasm.  
  
Without any further ado, the dark-haired undead guy switched over to his real appearance – claws and game face – and jumped with a hard kick, hitting the Slayer's body right on her belly. Buffy recoiled for a second, but quickly got up and moved away from the next blow, rolling along the dirty ground.  
  
As the rainwater kept falling and generated even more mud, Buffy's fist blocked a punch from Xander's and managed to return the blow. As the blonde girl prepared to let loose a low kick, the vampire was able to jump and let it pass without being struck by her agile legs.  
  
Spinning his hips to the left and preventing a new blow, Xander made with a furious powerful punch to the girl's back, causing her to fall.  
  
As he lay on top of her body, blocking her arms with his own and with no sign of any grin or vicious pleasure, he whispered in almost physical pain, "I win, Buffy."  
  
Buffy smiled sadly, feeling the pressure on her arms against the soiled land increase. "No, you don't."  
  
The vampire let his human mask come out again, and yelled with a fury that seemed to burn raggedly inside his deep dark eyes. "No, I win! What Anya did to me... it set me free! I win, and you can't take that away from me! I'm free now, and I don't know pain, or grief, or suffering..."  
  
Red tears of blood started to fall down the young vampire's face, burning his pale skin as Xander sobbed viciously, "I win, Buffy, I win... I'm free now... I should feel free..."  
  
"Xander was too good a person to let the demon take over completely," Buffy said softly, her own crystal-clear tears getting mixed with the drops of rain. "You'll never be totally free of him. He was stronger than that."  
  
On top of the Slayer's body, any other noise seemed to utterly cease for fleeting seconds that seemed like centuries to Xander. "I won't let him win," he hissed both in ire and passion. "Xander's dead. Dead forever!"  
  
Feeling the grip against her arms suddenly weakening, Buffy managed to grab a stake from inside her jacket pocket and shove it into the vampire's unbeating heart.  
  
And at the same time, the Slayer felt a spiky and sharp silver dagger ramming deep into her chest; one, two, three times.  
  
A fleeting second, a timeless moment, an ephemeral instant passed.  
  
The Slayer and the vampire exchanged thin, authentic smiles before succumbing to the forever darkness that lay beyond the physical world. Buffy's corpse would be found the next morning dirty with mud, the blood staining the pretty girl's entire body along with the dust on top of it.  
  
Still, they smiled for that transitory flash of time. Smiles of rage, passion, madness, love, and pain.  
  
A knowing feeling of ardor, fury and power – a fiery blaze flaming inside their eyes and hearts – connected one with the other's until that very last instant.  
  
That was when Xander and Buffy knew. They were finally free of this life.  
  
Their last true addiction.  
  
***  
  
Please you guys, review! 


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